Ice Clouds in Color IR

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

This image shows two representations of the same infrared image in the Elysium region of Mars. On the left is a gray-scale image showing surface temperature, and on the right is a false-color composite made from 3 individual THEMIS bands. The false-color image is colorized using a technique called decorrelation stretch (DCS), which emphasizes the spectral differences between the bands to highlight compositional variations.
The light blue area in the center of this image is a very nice example of a water ice cloud. Water ice is frequently present in the Martian atmosphere as a thin haze. Clouds such as this one can be difficult to identify in a temperature image, but are easy to spot in the DCS images. In this case, the water ice is relatively confined and concentrated which may be due to the topography of the Elysium volcanic construct.